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Topic: Ripping CDs, what's your MO? (Read 8109 times) previous topic - next topic
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Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Hi,

I want to record my CD collection.  I am thinking that I will use iTunes and set the import settings to WAV, 48,000 kHz, 16-bit, Stereo.

I will also retrieve the album art via signing into the Apple Store.

My question is, is this the best way to record ones collection?  Ultimately, I want to be able to play my WAV files on my soundsystem and simultaneously have the album art appear on my TV set.  However, I am not sure how to actually do this?  Any suggestions?

Also, I have noticed that iTunes saves the CDs in a folder (the albums title) and then in that folder the tracks are labeled 01. song title, 02. song title etc.  Typically, I save tracks Artist - Album - Track - Label.  Is the way iTunes organizes the tracks optimal? 

Thanks for the help.

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #1 –
First off I would say stick with 16/44.1, why use 48khz? Also, what's the reasoning behind using wav instead of ALAC since it looks like you like iTunes. Wav doesn't support tags, huge file sizes and just not worth it IMO.

Are you on mac or pc? If on pc, then I would suggest taking a look at EAC or dbpoweramp for your ripper and encode your files to flac and play with foobar2000 or any number of very good players.

If you're on a mac, I can't help much since I've not used mac enough to know what to suggest, but would obviously fit your iTunes setup better and ALAC would go well too.

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #2 –
Here's what I do:

1. rip w/ EAC
a.if bad or no accuraterip i clean disc and rip secure
2. encode to flac w/ cuesheet embedded w/ cuetools along with log & accuraterip tags embedded
3. apply tags with foo_discogs & update album art to put folder.jpg in to folder
4. enjoy 3000cd lossless collection

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #3 –
insert disc. foobar2000. rip. tag. rename/move. done.

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #4 –
Quote from: gordolindsay on
First off I would say stick with 16/44.1, why use 48khz?

If your sound card resamples everything to 48 kHz but does it poorly? Hopefully this case is very rare these days.

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #5 –
Surely it'd then be best to use a software resampler, instead of irreversibly processing the files?

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #6 –
Quote from: pdq on
Quote from: gordolindsay on
First off I would say stick with 16/44.1, why use 48khz?

If your sound card resamples everything to 48 kHz but does it poorly? Hopefully this case is very rare these days.

In this case, resample on playback (e.g. foobar2000 can do this). Resampling to 48KHz in advance isn't such a good idea, IMO.

Edit: dv1989 was quicker.

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #7 –
Quote from: gordolindsay on
First off I would say stick with 16/44.1, why use 48khz? Also, what's the reasoning behind using wav instead of ALAC since it looks like you like iTunes. Wav doesn't support tags, huge file sizes and just not worth it IMO.

Are you on mac or pc? If on pc, then I would suggest taking a look at EAC or dbpoweramp for your ripper and encode your files to flac and play with foobar2000 or any number of very good players.

If you're on a mac, I can't help much since I've not used mac enough to know what to suggest, but would obviously fit your iTunes setup better and ALAC would go well too.



Agree with this post.  Forget about WAV files. can't tag them and too large. Use FLAC or ALAC for your lossless choice and you will be happy with either. (like FLAC if your using a PC)
also would not use itunes to rip and encode with. I think it's kind of crappy. Some may disagree, but thats just IMO. I would use EAC (free $$$) as well or if you dont want to mess round configuring it. get dbpoweramp as the above mentioned. Its clean, easy, employs accuraterip, and costs maybe 20-$30. cheap if your looking to catalog your whole CD collection.
I say its up to you if you want to embed album art in the tags or just simply add a folder.jpg.  If you add a folder.jpg though and are using itunes, I don't think itunes will recognize the folder.jpg way, so maybe embedding it is right for you?

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #8 –
Quote from: timh22 on
Forget about WAV files. can't tag them...

There is no law that says wave files cannot contain metadata.  Read up on the spec if you still have doubts.

Having a hard time with your generous use of periods, but it sounds like you think that dBpoweramp works just great right out of the box, if so then I suggest you try ripping some wave files and then go back and look at the first sentence in this post, it might surprise you.

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #9 –
thanks for the responses, i appreciate the help.  I am using a PC.  I will record the cds 16/44.1 khz. 

I have been using wav because this is how i have my vinyl collection saved.  I really do not use tags, infact i tend to delete all the tags (when i download stuff off the net.)

considering that you can buy external hard drives with tons of storage space, i am not particularly concerned with the size of the files.  i am under the impression that wav is the best?  am i wrong?

thanks again

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #10 –
Quote from: solidstate on
i am under the impression that wav is the best?  am i wrong?
WAV and lossless formats such as FLAC/WavPack/TAK etc. produce identical output, with the lossless versions being significantly smaller. Lossless formats have well-defined, standard metadata formats, unlike WAV, and can handle files >4GB without requiring any ugly hacks.

WAV is still lossless, but it's inferior in many ways, especially as a container for music.

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #11 –
If "best" refers to sound quality, then no. Please research lossless codecs, which preserve audio exactly but require less disk space.

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #12 –
Quote from: frozenspeed on
Here's what I do:

1. rip w/ EAC
a.if bad or no accuraterip i clean disc and rip secure
2. encode to flac w/ cuesheet embedded w/ cuetools along with log & accuraterip tags embedded
3. apply tags with foo_discogs & update album art to put folder.jpg in to folder
4. enjoy 3000cd lossless collection




great.

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #13 –
Quote from: dv1989 on
If "best" refers to sound quality, then no. Please research lossless codecs, which preserve audio exactly but require less disk space.


okay, will do, thxs

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #14 –
one thought about flac.  i like to use mixed in key to find the key of the tracks that i play, and mik doesnt support flac.  i am on the fence about flac...

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #15 –
Hello. I will admit I didn't read very many of the replies here do to lack of time, but there was a few things that I did want to tell you. I have ripped my entire CD collection into the wave format and use iTunes to organize my music files. When I imported  my wave files into iTunes and labeled them manually according to iTunes, any cd that I had that iTunes had in it's library applied the album art to the album and to MOST of the wave files as individuals but not all. The CDs that I added that iTunes does not have in its library would not take the album art when I applied it manually. I contacted Apple about this, and it eventually led me talking to the engineers there, in which they said that the wave files should not be taking the album art that iTunes applied.  To make a long story short, the engineers had me send them a few wave files that took the album art to do research on. They said the issue may be addressed in the next version of iTunes or the version after. (When i say issue, I mean the fact that not all wave files accept album art.) I apologize if this isn't completely relevent, but it was a piece of experience that I wanted to add.

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #16 –
That's right, the wave files don't take the album art themselves, rather iTunes is supposed to create a link between the files and the artwork that is stored elsewhere.  In order for the artwork to be linked to all of the tracks, the album metadata for the tracks must be identical (other common metatdata between the tracks may need to be identical as well).

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #17 –
Quote
The CDs that I added that iTunes does not have in its library would not take the album art when I applied it manually.

By manually do you mean using "Download artwork" or embedding? If "take album art" means accept art for embedding, I'm fairly sure that's not possible with WAV. In the former case, as greynol said, iTunes stores and references external images (in a proprietary format, of course…)

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #18 –
Wave files can have artwork using the embedded 'id3' chunk method.

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #19 –
Quote
Wave files can have artwork using the embedded 'id3' chunk method.

Out of interest, how wide is WAV metadata support? I'm under the impression that it's rare, which I tend to oversimplify to 'not possible', but may be mistaken.

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #20 –
I think MediaMonkey and perhaps squeezecenter support it.

It is trivial for any program such as iTunes to add support, as the chunk is identical to the AIFF chunk of the same name.

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #21 –
What I do:

- Use dBpoweramp, reference version with paid PerfectMeta metadata sources to rip, with a DIY script that controls my Sony 200 CD changer and takes screenshots at end of each CD (easier to browse than log files).
- All rips to one folder per physical disc, one FLAC file per track, plus one .zip file for data tracks, in the same folder.
- At the end of a batch, browse screenshots while ejecting CDs to ensure that the metadata are correct
- Rip errors --> brief visual inspection and then dBpoweramp'ing with my Plextor PX-230
- Still rip errors --> leave aside for polishing.
- Mismatching metadata --> Mp3Tag with freedb or Discogs extended tags (the best tag source for the CDs for which it has data IMHO, while Allmusic has wider coverage)

- At end of a ripping session (i.e. a "batch" nowadays), running a script which adds a suffix to folder name with AccurateRipDiscID and AccurateRip accuracy, and then Foobar applies ReplayGain tags before files are moved to my library HDs.


Quote from: Canar on
WAV is still lossless

Well actually, the .wav file format is a container which can contain lossy-formatted audio like mp3. Rare though.

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #22 –
Quote from: solidstate on
one thought about flac.  i like to use mixed in key to find the key of the tracks that i play, and mik doesnt support flac.  i am on the fence about flac...

Ditch MIK. I did so for exactly this reason. Those morons don't have the slightest clue about their userbase. FLAC support has been wanted forever and AFAIR they even promised it at some point.

Hopefully we will see key-detection in foobar2000 sometime on the future. It already has a very good BPM detector!
Can't wait for a HD-AAC encoder :P
 

Ripping CDs, what's your MO?

Reply #23 –
Quote from: dv1989 on
I'm under the impression that it's rare, which I tend to oversimplify to 'not possible', but may be mistaken.

I agree. Let's just hold on to the fact that while it's surely POSSIBLE for WAV to store metadata, most applications doesn't take metadata in WAV for granted. Probably because it's merely considered a "transport"-format usually used for editing. FLAC however, has a standardized format for metadata and is EXPECTED to have these. Therefore almost every application supporting FLAC, supports it's metadata!

I wonder why we have these mods, always nitpicking about this, bringing a fine discussion completely offtopic! WAV is useless for everything but editing.
Can't wait for a HD-AAC encoder :P